#12 On eggs

Reader, I love eggs.

I love boiled eggs in egg cups on the kitchen table sitting with Dad who is cutting up my toast into soldiers (or sailors, but I don’t think either of us knew the difference); the eggs had to be scraped clean and turned upside down to have their bottoms bashed with the teaspoon to make a hole so that the witches wouldn’t sail away. Or a boiled egg on top of the mountain with P, on day 3 of our trek when we were so tired and we sat down and the mountains were breathlessly beautiful but they all faded away into eating that egg that we’d had in our pockets all day. Or when C used to get up and put boiled eggs in the kettle because he didn’t have a hob in that room in first year of uni and it was somehow so romantic to watch them rumbling in the kettle for two cycles. Or eating boiled eggs with I, who has a special mini salt shaker for boileys on the move, which is just one of the many things about her that are so cool.

I love scrambled eggs and I love making a huge saucepan of them for friends when we have breakfast all together- usually a birthday or a hangover. I love slow scrambled eggs that you never stop stirring on the lowest possible heat and I love quick scrambled eggs, still soft but with bigger lumps. I love watching videos on the internet of chefs using chopsticks to make those beautiful swirly scrambled egg/ omelette hybrids that I’ll never be able to make.

I love poached eggs and I am so proud about being able to reliably make lovely poached eggs that I never shut up about it - I never shut up especially about that time in Cornwall when Q suggested we have poached eggs on crumpets with marmite and I trusted his vision and cooked 18 perfect poached eggs in a row so that everyone could have two and Q was completely right about the vision and I was completely proud about the eggs. I loved making poached eggs with someone I loved and I love how eggs became the chorus of our love.

I love eggs with chilli sauce, I love eggs with tarragon, I love eggs with chives, I love eggs with mustard, I love chinese steamed eggs with soy sauce and sesame and spring onions, I love egg fried rice but can never make it as well as I’d like.

I love eggs with tomatoes, I love eggs in kedgiree, I love eggs in nicoise salads, I love baked eggs made by Mum when we were small and cold from being outside all day. I love shakshuka and I love the leek, zaatar, lemon shakshuka that B and A make and I loved the dal-shakshuka-thing I made that morning with last-night-dal.

I love fried eggs in a greasy spoon with hash browns and I love fried eggs at the kitchen table with Dad at home surrounded by newspapers and bacon and punctuated by Dad’s serious grinds of salt and pepper. I love frying an egg and putting it on top of a meal where it definitely belongs like noodles and I love frying an egg and putting it with things it doesn’t immediately make sense with.

I love omelettes and I loved concentrating on my omelette craft over lockdown and now I really think I’ve mastered the perfectly yellow, springy french omelette as much as I ever will. I love having a plain omelette with a black coffee in the morning. I also love fritatas and I love the way Harrison Ford says fritata in Morning Glory. I love spanish tortillas made at home with a big tapas spread or bought from the supermarket and eaten at a picnic.

A few Christmases ago we woke up and there weren’t enough eggs for breakfast (which on Christmas is always poached eggs, ham and Granny’s spiced peaches) so I drove to the farm where we usually leave coins in a pot and collect eggs. The farmer was up and about and we said Good Morning and Happy Christmas and she asked if I wanted a double yolker. I said Of Course Yes and she went off and while she was gone I filled up the tray with 11 eggs, leaving a spot for the double yolker and I wondered how she knew that an egg would be a double yolker but then she came back with 12 eggs for me and I took them home and they were all double yolkers.